The present invention is a storage system for storing electrical equipment in storage racks vertically stacked within a storage cabinet. In particular, the storage system includes side vented racks and rails to maintain acceptable temperatures within the storage racks.
Storage cabinets are generally used for storing a wide variety of electrical equipment, such as power supplies, central processing units (CPU), circuit boards, disc drives, tape drives, hard drives, storage arrays, controller card servers and exhaust fans. The equipment is generally stored in individual racks (i.e., storage containers or boxes) which are vertically stacked on top of each other within the cabinet. The racks are mounted to a pair of telescoping slide rails that are attached to the cabinet, which permits the rack to be extended out of the storage cabinet for repairs or modifications to the equipment in the rack. The slide rails mounted to the cabinet are vertically spaced such that a gap is formed between adjacent racks within the cabinet. This arrangement allows for sufficient airflow around the rack to dissipate heat generated by the electrical components in the rack.
Current model racks are comprised of substantially enclosed containers and therefore have limited means for venting the heat and maintaining the internal rack temperature at an acceptable level. One technique used to vent the racks is openings formed in a rear wall of the rack, and some racks include openings in the front wall as well. Air is circulated from the front to the rear of the rack to exit through openings in the rear of rack. The air should then exit through vents formed in the walls of the storage cabinet, most likely by a vacuum effect or blown out with a fan. The main problem of the current art, racks utilizing front to back circulation, is that there is poor circulation from front to back in the rack.  Thus, gaps are required between adjacent racks vertically stored in the cabinet to ensure a proper temperature level in each rack.
A second technique for venting the racks involves using a rack having a height greater than a height of the slide rails to which it is attached. The height of storage racks and side rails are measured in “u” units where 1 u equals 1.75 inches. Where, for example, a rack having a 2 u height is mounted to slide rails having a 1 u height, the bottom half of the rack is attached to the slide rail, leaving the top half of the rack available for side venting. Air can thus be vented through side wall openings in the top half of the rack to maintain acceptable temperature levels in the storage racks. The requirement in the art to either vertically space adjacent racks in a cabinet or to utilize oversized racks relative to the rail height to control temperatures within the racks leads to inefficient use of storage space within the cabinet. Some businesses that store computer equipment or servers for other businesses (known as co-location services) charge a fee based on the rack space utilized within a cabinet. The ability to maximize utilization of space within a storage cabinet heretofore has been limited by the cooling requirements of prior art rack designs.
A storage system which allows close vertical stacking of storage racks and improved venting of the racks to maintain acceptable temperature levels within the racks is made possible by the present invention.